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I'm Sick of Subs

#61
almost.... I work with 3 different drummers on a regular basis. all pros pros. Its OK with them.
But ive been subbing many dates lately... and those gigs .. Not sure if its the drummer or their sound guys.. Its like i am the only one that notices the overly lowend ringing tone.. Its like bad reverb.. but its actually low end ringing verge of feedback!

Not all . but i find many of the sound guys in Texas think that bass is anything that is low freq.. they are used to hearing the mud bass of the 70s.. and they are OK with that so it seems. :D and my rig is anything but mud. its lat and i use small rigs.. maybe too small..

i LOVE DEEP lows but dont make it so there is so much low end kick drum that it is out of balance and ringing into mics on stage. I just turn my rig off.. Why fight that drum monitor.. Use my IEMs now. .
What is worse is when one of those other drummers want more and more bass guitar in their monitor with subs. My Bass then becomes louder in their monitor than my bass is on stage amp!! Who needs a bass amp when its like that.. ? annoying </gripe>
 
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#63
svtb15 said:
I ve been on a few gigs lately where the monitor guy makes the Drum monitor so it has so much Kick drum going that it totally affects all the low end on stage.. Just a low end ring...
WTH is wrong with these sound guys?
Click to expand...
WTH is wrong with bands that are so loud that the drummer needs his kick in his monitor?
 
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#65
fokof said:
I'll try a re-enactement of how it happened:
-Drummer: Hey , gimme more kick in my wedge
-Monitor guy: OK
-Drummer: Can you give me more low end , sound middish !
-Monitor guy:I'm at the max. I can add a sub at your monitoring position but it will spill in front and interact badly with the FOH sound.
-Drummer: I don't care , my personal pleasure is way more important than all the people who pay to see me.
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At one time I was pretty anal about not working with any band that needs kick in the drummer's monitor. Nowadays all my monitors are eight small 10" coaxials and I might even give the drummer one on each side. They roll off below 120Hz and are highpassed at 100 Hz so if anyone wants kick or bass no prob - just nothing below that :D. Surprisingly enough I often have an ampless bass player and they get plenty of lows off the backwash from the subs to fill out the one or two monitors I give them. I go straight in myself when using my system for one of my bands.
 
#67
Well some stages are big and you need monitor even the kick.. lets a drummer play more dynamically since then they can play softer and well with dynamics. .. but only to reinforce what is already there.
Some monitor guys seem to want to mix FOH level for stage monitors.. its not needed

RoadRanger said:
WTH is wrong with bands that are so loud that the drummer needs his kick in his monitor?
Click to expand...
 
#69
So... I went to see Dave Mason's Traffic Jam last week. No bass player! Kickbutt drummer that basically played in time, lot's of quarter notes. Used to play for Chaka Khan among some other heavies... Keyboard guy's left hand provided pitch, bass drum provided punch. Drums were forward in the mix. About 3 songs in I forgot about it and just enjoyed the show. A very different and interesting approach but clearly it was what they did by design and while I would have preferred a bass player - it flat out worked. And cut the payroll for the band. Bus touring 400 to 500 seat theaters, that is not inconsequential... Sound guy had his act together and frankly I was drooling over the sound of the kit.

Hearing a fresh take on some of the old traffic tunes was kind of a buzz. Maybe a little hit or miss as some were dummed down but still - really enjoyable show.

Behringer x32 board FOH and one side stage, analog snake, small JBL Line Array setup that belongs to the house. sennheiser E604's on the kit. Not sure what was on the kick. Could have been a D6 based on the deep and snap. Could have been something else out front with a 57 on the beater, polarity opposite of the front mic too... Any way, the drummer was great and his kit sounded wonderful and I forgot all about the no bass player thing early on. And yes of course they had subs and the drummer had a 2 way powered box on a sub as his monitor.

These are all tools. The right hands make all the difference. I would seriously like to crew for that sound guy... Best drum sound I've heard in ages.
 
#70
I do a bit of sound and lights on the side for my old band. In a ~1000 seat venue the prerecorded elements were overpowering so I had to get the main sound engineer to cut a lot out (basically nothing in the subs). It was like thunder! We hadn't put it through anything that big or bass heavy for it to have become apparent but it was revealing and is a lesson for me to check things in a spectrum analyser in future for anything I do as I wouldn't have noticed from my studio monitor speakers or headphones, which are very flat response Sennheisers in the main.
 
#71
-Asdfgh- said:
I do a bit of sound and lights on the side for my old band. In a ~1000 seat venue the prerecorded elements were overpowering so I had to get the main sound engineer to cut a lot out (basically nothing in the subs). It was like thunder! We hadn't put it through anything that big or bass heavy for it to have become apparent but it was revealing and is a lesson for me to check things in a spectrum analyser in future for anything I do as I wouldn't have noticed from my studio monitor speakers or headphones, which are very flat response Sennheisers in the main.
Click to expand...
if your monitoring is flat then the PA was bass heavy.
 
#73
Downunderwonder said:
if your monitoring is flat then the PA was bass heavy.
Click to expand...

Fair point, I needed more coffee, obviously!

The bass guitar through the PA that day sounded mostly fine, so if the PA was set bass heavy it implies that the bass guitar signals were suitable EQed.

It's not my audio so I hadn't checked the spectrum so hadn't spotted it before, so it was still a shock and a lesson learned. Since it had mostly been going through smaller PAs before I'd been pulling a lot below ~80Hz anyway up to that point, so it was the first time it had gone in raw into something that had the capability to produce anything loud at low frequencies.

It was easily fixable, though.
 
#74
RoadRanger said:
That's a common thing these days :( .
Click to expand...

I'm sure I've mentioned it on this thread, but it does disappoint me when it happens, and much more pleasant when the bass sits nicely in the mix. Still, sometimes things are done well. Best bass sound at a big venue was at an REM concert (stadium), except the best sound was for the support! But even then Mike Mills came across very well.
 
#76
RoadRanger said:
WTH is wrong with bands that are so loud that the drummer needs his kick in his monitor?
Click to expand...

Except in the situations that you're inside a room constructed for sound reinforcement, the acoustic sound of a kick drum really doesn't produce a whole lot of audible volume. Not having kick in the drum monitor is often like playing bass with no amp or IEMs. You can do it, particularly if you know the material, but it's not quite the same.
 
#77
LiquidMidnight said:
Except in the situations that you're inside a room constructed for sound reinforcement, the acoustic sound of a kick drum really doesn't produce a whole lot of audible volume. Not having kick in the drum monitor is often like playing bass with no amp or IEMs. You can do it, particularly if you know the material, but it's not quite the same.
Click to expand...
I've never played with a drummer who needs it. But they do know how to tune their drums :) .
 
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#78
while most drummers i play with could get by without but are much happier with some kick monitoring, even if the rest of the kit isn't in the PA. (good drummers, too)

apparently just like out front, behind a rock kit the kick is just not as loud to the player as the rest of the drums.

that said, yeah, a crushing kick monitor with its own sub can quickly cause a stage volume death spiral among the other players.
 
#79
dheafey said:
Another possible cause is the Power Alley. Subs on each side of the stage with mains on sticks is considered by some to be the exact WRONG way to do it even though we see it all the time. The resulting "bass suck" could cause someone to crank the subs creating a mess of the low end.

Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...

Yup--- sometimes it sound better to unplug one of the subs and us it as a base for the speaker above it.
 
#80
RoadRanger said:
I've never played with a drummer who needs it. But they do know how to tune their drums :) .
Click to expand...

If you're playing in a venue where the mains are louder than the stage volume, any drummer that really cares about presenting their music will want some kind of monitor. It doesn't have to be stupidly loud, but it's there to give them a sense of space in the bigger sound of the room.

I like playing with drummers who have drums in their monitors in a musically serving way. The paradox is that, IME, it allows the stage volume to remain lower, and they can play with more nuance and finesse rather than feeling the need to hear themselves and overplaying/bashing for two or more hours.
 
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